Sepiatone Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 I've noticed several members here, and many people I personally know out in the "real world" tend to make judgement calls based solely on their personal likes and dislikes. For instance, they deem a movie as "terrible" or "sucky" because they simply didn't like it. Either there was an actor they don't care for much in it, or the topic wasn't to their taste. They seem to lack the ability to note that something was done well, but just didn't appeal to their tastes. Sometimes I'm guilty of this too. But I try to avoid it. In other areas, I can attest that, say, David Bowie has a noted level of talent. I just don't favor the type of music he does. Or another, Barbara Streisand has a fantastic singing voice, but I'm not a fan of the genre of songs that she sings. I think it wrong to say, "Striesand SUCKS! I HATE that BEE-YOTCH!" It's the same with movies. While I might not like, say, Adolph Menjou, and yeah, I know, I've said plenty bad about him, there are those who think he's wonderful. And since he's done so well career wise, who am I to knock success? So now, I will strive NOT to be the kind of person I've mentioned. I will do my utmost to NOT claim any movie or movie actor as "pure crap" simply because the movie OR star didn't catch my fancy. Only when it's too obvious that the movie WAS a pile of crap, and most of us are on board with that assessment, will I opine in that sense. If, in the future, any of you catch me in backsliding, feel free to give me a swift kick! Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 >I've noticed several members here, and many people I personally know out in the "real world" tend to make judgement calls based solely on their personal likes and dislikes. That is ok. That is called "their personal opinion". In the US, people are allowed to have and express their personal opinion. We are not required to conform to any party line or group opinion. I think everyone on this board knows that everyone is expressing their personal opinion, just as you have just done and are free to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownGoesFrazier Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 LIsten to Bowie's "Suffragette City" or "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)", and tell me you don't like them. Edited by: finance on Sep 29, 2013 2:08 PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamradio Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 We should make it a rule not to criticized the offbeat romance movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted September 29, 2013 Share Posted September 29, 2013 I think we should automatically insert the words "My opinion is...." before we say anything here. But that's just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValentineXavier Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 I agree with you completely. I spent 18 years on the selection committee of an avant-garde experimental film festival. I voted to program numerous films that didn't really appeal to me, but that I knew were well-made films that would appeal to others, and deserved programming. It is the fact that what I personally appreciate doesn't definitively make a film good, or bad, that makes me reluctant to make declarations about what film is best, or worst. I have no problem saying that I like a film, or even that I think a film is a great film. But, I won't pronounce a film to be a bad film, just because some of the actors, or the genre, don't appeal to me. They may well appeal to others very much. I have to have concrete, objective reasons to call a film a bad film. So, as much as everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and has the right to voice it, I think they need more than a personal dislike for a film to say it stinks, sucks, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyM108 Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 I usually consider the person or the forum I'm addressing when I mention a movie I don't like, partly out of respect and partly because I know there's a difference between personal taste and critical judgement. Posting on a TCM forum, I try my best (really) to acknowledge differing tastes. I might say that Yankee Doodle Dandy or The Birth of a Nation drive me up a wall, but I wouldn't pretend that those were objective critical comments about the skill involved in the making of those two films. OTOH in a casual conversation I'm likely to say things like " Last Tango in Paris? That pretentious piece of perversion?" Or " Mississippi Burning is the best argument I can think of for celluloid abortion." (Which I might also say here, but never mind.) But that's because when I come out with lines like that, I'm almost always talking to friends who know that such comments aren't meant to be taken as attacks on them, even if *they* know that *I* know that *they* like those movies. And they'll be just as likely to talk like that about movies they can't stand themselves, knowing that *I* like them. Of course some of the best critics in history have mastered the art of taking criticism to the level of near-vendetta without always losing their critical faculties. John Simon or Pauline Kael, for instance. But that's a lot easier to do when you've got a guaranteed contract in your pocket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 What is it about "Mississippi Burning" that you don't like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyM108 Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 What is it about "Mississippi Burning" that you don't like? It took an organization (the FBI) that did nothing whatever to help the civil rights movement and did much to hinder it*, and made it into some sort of a white knight crusader for racial justice, which is about as far from the historical truth as possible. The civil rights movement itself was rendered virtually invisible throughout the film. The movie took one specific case of racially motivated murder in a state with dozens of such murders, and made it into a generic Hollywood cop movie, scarcely distinguishable from scores of others. It's not just about the movie that was made. It's about the many movies about Mississippi Summer that Hollywood chose *not* to make. You can defend the slant of Mississippi Burning on purely commercial grounds, I suppose, but it doesn't make the movie any better. In terms of historical reality, it was a pure embarrassment. *Ignoring countless well documented reports of violence and intimidation; using the narrowest possible interpretation of the law to refuse to act when they saw federal laws being violated right in front of their eyes; compiling dossiers of civil rights workers (I was one of them) and in some cases (like with Hoover and King) attempting to blackmail them. The best thing you can say about J. Edgar Hoover is that in 41 years he hasn't yet managed to rise up from his grave. The review in The Guardian put it quite succinctly: *"Mississippi Burning is written, acted and filmed with flair, but its history and politics are as murky as a Mississippi swamp."* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Thanks Andy. Maybe you can copy what you said and paste it on the Mississippi Burning thread I just started, so we can keep all the comments on one thread. I'll try to get back to you about this tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyM108 Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Glad to oblige, Fred. I just did as you requested, and I'll catch up with any other comments tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tikisoo Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Well said Sepia. (my opinion of course) As we all know, posting on an internet message board has it's own set of 'netticate apart from RL (real life) mostly because it's in writing without inflection and it's not instant like RL conversation. People have a tendency to state their opinion as fact, ie "anything after 1960 is not a classic" or "TCM shows XXX too often or at a terrible time slot" and that sort of thing. It's much better to say something to the effect: "I just don't understand the genius of Hitchcock....can anyone explain?" rather than "I hate that loser Hitchcock" as it's inviting conversation rather than shutting the door on anyone else's opinion. Mostly, this indicates the poster thinks only within their own world and little of others feelings or opinions-something personal computer devices promote, sadly. Good social skills come with time, practice & mistakes, as does good 'netticate. "I don't like a man with too many muscles" "I didn't make him...for YOU!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted September 30, 2013 Author Share Posted September 30, 2013 Actually, I'm not a big fan of Bowie. But I DO like "Sufferagette City", "Changes" and the studio version of "Diamond Dogs". It all kind of ties in. Someone can CLAIM not to like, say, Frank Capra. But they MIGHT like at least one of his movies, and the statement then sounds hipocritical. Fact is, not all of Capra's movies are gems. But seeing one that isn't doesn't rationalize the dismissal of the entire Capra library. But some people DO that sort of thing. Maybe the only Hitchcock movie I like is REAR WINDOW( it's NOT the only one, but I AM waxing hypothetical). It would be wrong for me to say he "sucks" as a director since he only did, in my opinion, one good movie. It would only mean, like with Bowie, I'm not a Hitchcock "fan". Even if I didn't like ANY Hitchcock films, it would be insidious of me to, like Leo, to insist that TCM shouldn't show any of them. Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hamradio Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 Now that's what you call a love of sculpture. LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownGoesFrazier Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 If posters say "my opinion is........." followed by a , no arguments would ensue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 You would think. That usually works in my case. Seeing that in a post I mean. But there HAVE been times a comment I would make in jest or "tongue-in-cheek" and followed with a "smiley" or "wink" emoticon that people would STILL take umbrage with, and thought I was being serious. Go figure... Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyBackTransformer Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Sufferagette is correctly spelled Suffragette, Sep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 >But there HAVE been times a comment I would make in jest or "tongue-in-cheek" and followed with a "smiley" or "wink" emoticon that people would STILL take umbrage with, and thought I was being serious. Go figure... There are a couple of people I know who will realize you are just joking, but they like to fight so much, they will pretend you are not joking, just so they can fuss at you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownGoesFrazier Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 I'd like to ch-ch-change your opinion of Bowie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownGoesFrazier Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 LOL, do you feel guilty? I wasn't talking about you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrroberts Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Bowie and that whole glam rock thing never did anything for me, sorry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo2 Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 >There are a couple of people I know who will realize you are just joking, but they like to fight so much, they will pretend you are not joking, just so they can fuss at you. Yeah, and I've noticed that there are a "couple" of people I know around here who once you've questioned something they've said, tend to become overly and needlessly defensive, create a fuss where none really existed beforehand, accuse you of somehow bein' a "cop", AND then place you on their ignore function. (...what a coincidence, HUH?!...I guess we're just two observant people here, eh Fred?!......Fred?!..........Fred?!) LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sepiatone Posted October 3, 2013 Author Share Posted October 3, 2013 >I'd like to ch-ch-change your opinion of Bowie. What's to change? Isn't it enough that I, in spite of admitting I was never a big fan, stated it didn't mean he had no talent, and even LIKED a few, select songs? That's never going to change. If YOU'RE a big Bowie "fan", then good for you! You could have done worse, really. I mean, it's NOT like you were big on "Speedracer" music! Sepiatone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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